Global climate change and the contribution of effects by carbon dioxide (CO2) have led to researching ways to reduce CO2 emissions. One solution is to capture CO2 at its source (e.g., at a power plant) and sequestrate it before releasing to the atmosphere.
Conventional power plants use fossil fuel to generate power. Carbon dioxide is an inevitable byproduct of fuel-burning process. Conventional integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plants utilize clean coal power production, but their need for continuous supply of oxygen for combusting coal makes the construction and operation of such gasification power plant expensive limiting their scalability and reliability. In addition, as a result of partial combustion of coal with pure oxygen for heat production to drive the gasification reaction of coal, carbon dioxide is generated. The removal of carbon dioxide is required to achieve the required heating value of the produced Syngas.
The capital costs associated with oxygen production plants and gas cleaning equipment are roughly 25% of the entire gasification power plant. The production of oxygen and cleaning of combustion gases require energy. The more energy is produced, the more energy is spent for oxygen production and gas cleaning. Therefore, the operating cost for power generation using those conventional gasification system increases with their energy production capacity. This has an adverse affect on the overall efficiency and carbon dioxide emissions. Elimination of the oxygen plant not only lowers the capital costs of a clean coal power plant but also reduces carbon dioxide emissions.